In June 1925, he was one of the leaders of a protest march in Guangzhou which was fired upon by British and French troops, in what became known as the Shaji Incident; Liao himself had his hat shot off, and barely escaped with his life.

His mother, who had returned to China from Japan, soon left the country again in disgust with Chiang Kai-shek's government; she first went to Paris where she made a living selling paintings before joining her son in Berlin.

Her elder brother objected strenuously to their relationship, due to Liao's CCP membership; he feared his sister would get mixed up in political conflicts.

[7] In August 1933, Liao bid farewell to his mother and, under the orders of the Party, proceeded to the Sichuan-Shaanxi area carrying Kuomintang codes which would allow the Communists to decrypt their telegraph messages.

He spent two more years in a CCP prison, and thus ended the Long March as a criminal, but was restored to good standing in the Party in late 1936 while in northern Shaanxi by Mao Zedong and his old friend Zhou Enlai.

Liao left Hong Kong in January 1941, but after the Imperial Japanese Army invaded and occupied the city, he was chosen for his fluency in Japanese along with Lian Guan to sneak back in and establish contact with fellow revolutionaries who had been trapped there; by May, he had helped over 500 people escape from Hong Kong, including his mother, Soong Ching-ling, Mao Dun, Xia Yan, Liang Shuming, Cai Chusheng, Liu Yazi, Hu Feng, Hu Sheng, and Zou Taofen (邹韬奋).

However, such was the respect of his fellow revolutionaries for him that even while in prison, he was elected as an alternate member of the CCP's Politburo by the representatives of the 7th National Congress in Yan'an in April 1945.

[2] In January 1946, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to the prison camp in Ganzhou where the young Liao was being held, directing that he be flown to the KMT's seat of government, then still located in Chongqing.

[10] In 1960, Liao warned that Communist China "shall not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and New Territories liberated" should the status quo (i.e. colonial administration) be changed.

He also continued to play an important role in Sino-Japanese relations, accompanying Deng Xiaoping on his visit to Japan, meeting with Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda.

[5][12] In March 1980, with his health worsening, Liao flew to the United States to undergo coronary artery bypass surgery at the Stanford University's Medical Center.

He remained overweight even in his twilight years; after his surgery, his wife tried to manage his diet more closely, but he continued to eat fatty foods and smoke the occasional cigarette.

[6] On 25 July of the same year, the People's Daily published Liao's open letter to his old jailer Chiang Ching-kuo, who by then had risen to the position of President of the Republic of China.